


The Opposite of the World

by purgatorydog (huntstiel)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 9x03, Angst, Coda, Episode: s09e03 I'm No Angel, M/M, post ep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-24
Updated: 2013-10-24
Packaged: 2017-12-30 08:54:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1016620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/huntstiel/pseuds/purgatorydog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A continuation/reimagination of the conversation Cas and Dean have at the end of 9x03.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Opposite of the World

           “You can’t stay.”

           Dean’s words scraped against his chest like asphalt. Castiel thought he was safe, _finally_. He had spent the previous days wandering, enduring in all the sticky, awkward ways humans have to in order to live on. The earth seemed so much larger than it ever had before. (Maybe because now he had to walk it.) The confusion, the cold, the sensory overload—it was too much for him but he couldn’t stop feeling. He tried to absorb everything, though it didn’t make him feel any fuller. What he was missing didn’t hit him until he reached the bunker. It was warm there, with books to read and coffee to drink; there lived Sam and Dean and Kevin, people whom (in a mordant twist that did not escape him) he wanted to protect more than ever now that he had no celestial powers.

           Castiel had lacked _home_. Home wasn’t a place—though the bunker was lovely—but a feeling so subtle that it had eluded him his whole existence. It was a buoy that sustained him in a world that was utterly indifferent to his survival. Home was, in fact, the opposite of the world.

           How could he articulate that to Dean?  The man in front of him currently was deaf to subtlety; his gaze stony. This was the man who had spent his whole life pretending to be stoic in order to do the right thing.

           “I—I—” Castiel sputtered. What were the words? “I need you…”

           “You've done all right so far,” Dean replied gruffly, “we’ll get you a cell phone and a fake ID and—”

           Castiel leaned forward, his arm plaintively outstretched on the table, palm up. “No, Dean. _I need you._ ”

           The fierce look in his eyes sent Dean straight back to the crypt, where he had kneeled on the floor, desperate to talk the angel out of sealing his doom. Those three words had saved him that night; they pierced Castiel’s hot heart when his mind had been decided for him by someone else. Dean understood what those words meant—in fact, they squeezed the very breath out of him—but he could not deviate. For all his rebellion and free will, for all the laws he’d ever gleefully broken, one rule he could not break. It was sewn into the very fiber of his being: _take care of your brother_.

           Dean broke their gaze and looked down at his hands in his lap. He felt Castiel’s eyes linger, and though he knew Cas could no longer read his thoughts, he still felt incredibly transparent.

           “I know,” he said, sighing. “I can’t—there’s a reason—” He reached out to put his hand in Cas’s, but stopped himself. Touching him would only make it worse. He wasn’t sure for who.

           Castiel saw Dean’s denial for what it was, for what it would always be: survival. It was foolhardy of him to think that Dean couldn’t live without him. After all, how many times had he winged away from Dean, leaving him to fend for himself? He had had a lot of practice by now. Remorse seized Castiel: _in a way,_ he told himself, _you brought this upon yourself, didn’t you?_

           He withdrew his hand from the table and squared his shoulders sharply. “I understand. I’ll be gone in the morning.” He left before Dean could say anything more.


End file.
